


Warmth

by Alexa_Piper



Series: The Notebook - Unrelated Danny Phantom Oneshots from 2013 to 2019 [16]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: At least I'm pretty sure it was a Truce gift, Christmas Truce 2018, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, backdated fic, post-identity reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27211276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexa_Piper/pseuds/Alexa_Piper
Summary: High above the town, Danny hides from his problems... or at least he tries to.
Relationships: Danny Fenton/Valerie Gray
Series: The Notebook - Unrelated Danny Phantom Oneshots from 2013 to 2019 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1986457
Kudos: 24





	Warmth

Danny dangled his legs over the edge of the clock tower, his fingers curling around the edge as his feet kicked in the empty air. A stiff wind tousled his hair and snapped his shirt against his body. The city lights glimmered beneath him, and the boy's gaze automatically slipped over the white and yellow spots until they found the misshapen neon glare of the Fentonworks sign across town.

The low drone of a hoverboard buzzed through the night. Danny gripped the edge of the building tighter, leaning his body backwards until he was lying down with his feet still hanging in empty space. His view of the city was gone, replaced by the starry expanse above.

The sound of the board grew louder, and the halfa pointedly ignored the figure that flew over the edge of the building and hovered next to him.

"Get up."

At least it wasn't his mother.

When Danny didn't move or respond in any way, the huntress shifted beside him, and suddenly his view of the stars was drowned out by a headlight beam shining directly onto his face. "Really?" he groaned, lifting an arm to block the light.

"Really," she responded, "or I'll knock you off the building."

Danny sighed, closing his eyes and dropping the arm. "You do that then," he mumbled.

For a moment, all he could hear was the wind and the motor of Valerie's board. Then the light was gone, and he heard her suit retract with a mechanical whir before she settled beside him.

"Have you eaten anything?"

"Not since they forced me to drink a whole bottle of Gatorade," Danny said.

There was the sound of a zipper followed by the click of plastic being set down on concrete, and the ghost boy's stomach tightened with hunger at the sudden heady scent of spices. "You're supposed to eat properly," the huntress chided as Danny finally opened his eyes. "You can't afford to be starving if some stupidly powerful ghost decides to attack."

He sat up with a grunt, swinging his legs back onto the roof and sitting cross-legged in front of his friend. "My core's not gunna burn out from one missed meal," he insisted as Valerie continued to remove the lids from small plastic containers of steaming saffron rice and a couple of different curries. The aroma was overwhelming, and Danny scooted closer to her.

She snorted in response, stowing the lids beneath their respective containers to prevent them from blowing away. "I've seen what you're like in battle after missing a meal," she reminded him, "and fighting abilities aside, you Mum'd skin you if she knew you hadn't eaten anything since lunch."

Danny sighed, accepting a bowl and fork from his companion. "You didn't have to get take-out though," he said. "Indian's expensive."

Valerie shrugged. "I put it on Sam's 'ghost boy' tab," she responded. "You know she has it set up with pretty much every fast food joint around town, right?"

Danny felt his face heat up. "I only use it for emergencies," he insisted.

"You haven't eaten in ten hours," Valerie snapped. "I'd say that's an emergency."

Danny chose not to comment further on the subject, and they fell into silence as he spooned rice and a generous helping of what looked like butter chicken into his bowl. After Valerie had served herself and they both started eating, she spoke again. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Danny shook his head around a mouthful, keeping his gaze firmly on the bowl in his hands. Ever since his secret had become common knowledge, talking was just something he couldn't seem to face. The silence stretched, pressing against his thoughts.

He jumped when the building shuddered beneath them, the low, sonorous chimes of the town's clock rattling the halfa's skull. Valerie swore in between the peals, putting her plate on the ground and clapping her hands over her ears. Each fresh sound drove itself straight through their bodies, Danny's core shuddering at the raw ripples of energy.

"How can you stand that?" Valerie demanded once the final note had faded, her voice louder than usual.

Danny shrugged, keeping his gaze on his meal. Besides a faint ringing in his ears which dissipated within seconds, the overpowering sounds had had little effect, even though the girl in front of him was clearly rattled; he could easily note her trembling hands in the gloom. His mood soured again at the reminder of his less-than-human features.

Valerie huffed as she reclaimed her bowl, opening her jaw wide and grunting in satisfaction as Danny faintly heard the crackle of ligaments stretching. "Sorry," she said as their eyes met properly for the first time since her arrival, "just popping my ears."

His gaze slipped away again, fixing itself on his food. "I should be apologising," he mumbled. "That could have really hurt you."

She snorted. "I'd be a pretty poor huntress if I was deafened by something like that."

Danny twirled the fork through his rice, pushing it into mounds heavy with butter sauce. "Still, you can't ignore the laws of physics."

"I'm fine," she insisted. "You're the one who should worry about that much energy running through your core."

"That wasn't enough to hurt me," he responded, taking a mouthful in an attempt to signal that he would rather eat than talk about himself right now.

Either Valerie didn't get the hint, or she ignored it. "You know, you don't need to act like that," she chastised, voice gentle. "You … you're not invincible, Danny."

"I'm close," he ground out, the handle of the fork digging into his palm. His brain screamed at him to leave, to just turn invisible and hightail it out of there, but the more rational side held him in place. Better to get the conversation over with out here, in the stiff evening breeze where he could breathe under the stars, instead of suffocating inside Valerie's room or his parents' lab or a similar space where his thoughts would stall and keep slipping back to claustrophobic thoughts and dark, awful spaces that he just couldn't face right now…

"You may be close," she said, her words snapping away from that intruding darkness, "but even if you can't die, you can still be hurt."

Danny's eyes met hers before he could stop them, and the sheer stability of her gaze was something for him to cling to.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his words snatched by the wind and flung away, out over the city's lights. He didn't even know why he said it, or who he was actually apologising to, but Danny knew that it was important for him to say.

Valerie's shadowed face shifted into something soft, the small, hard lines that creased her brow melting away. "You have _nothing_ to be sorry for," she insisted.

Danny looked away as his stomach twisted, and he wasn't sure if it was from hunger or the shame that burned through his gut. "I'm so weak," he muttered. He needed to clarify this, to explain why he had run, why he just couldn't do this anymore.

At the edge of his vision, her brow creased again. "You are _not –_ "

"I _fainted_ , Val!" he spat, feeling the metal fork warp in his tightening grip. He looked away, out over the lights that sparkled through the night. "It was just a di… a-a frog dissection video…" His breathing hitched, and Danny blinked as his eyes prickled. The wind pulled at his hair and he took a deep breath, holding it in as the wide sky above dragged him away from that still, stagnant room where he couldn't move, couldn't breathe…

A gentle touch snapped his gaze back into focus, and Danny stared as Valerie's soft hand slid over his own, warm against his cold skin. "You're bleeding," she simply said, and Danny uncurled his fingers. Cuts had opened across his hand – thin, straight lines from the twisted, split handle of the fork. The blood welled black in the darkness, but the immiscible ectoplasm glowed like the neon sign above his home, garish in the gloom.

"Sorry," he mumbled again, dropping the fork and closing his hand in an attempt to hide that awful, inhuman fluid, but it simply seeped through his fingers. The sight sent a shudder through his body, and Danny squeezed his eyes shut as tears slipped down his cheeks. The wind chilled them on his cheeks, and he knew Valerie would be able to see the glowing drops.

With a rustle of cloth and the sweet scent of her shampoo, Danny felt Valerie press against his side and rest her head on his shoulder. She was soft and soothing, her heartbeat sounding in his ears and her hair tickling his nose.

He sniffed, leaning into her touch. It was easier to feel safe like this, with the warmth of life nestled at his side. Danny glanced down at his hand, the stinging intensifying as he uncurled his fingers once again. The cuts were already clotting, the ectoplasm's viscosity plugging the wounds far quicker than any human processes could work. In a couple more minutes the bleeding would stop entirely, and by morning the cuts would be almost gone.

"You don't have to be so brave, you know," she murmured into his shirt. "You could have left when we were warned about the video at the start of class."

Danny shook his head, throat tight as he struggled to find the words to say. "I shouldn't have to," he choked. "I've fought all sorts of horrible monsters, and I've survived what nobody should ever be able to, but… but I can't even handle biology class."

Valerie hummed. "You know, what happened at school… that's a very human response. What do ghosts do when they're faced with things that bring up bad memories?"

Danny's answer was quick and sure, tinged with a note of bitterness. "They blast it into oblivion."

"Exactly, but you didn't shoot the screen."

"No, I just –"

"You fainted, just like a human would in a situation like that. You shouldn't be ashamed when you've been through something that awful."

Danny took a deep breath, her meaning finally clear. A siren started somewhere below and they sat there in silence for a moment, her breathing a rhythm that matched his extraordinarily slow heartbeat.

"Should you get that?" Valerie murmured.

Danny shook his head. "It's an ambulance," he clarified. The tones of the different emergency sirens were something he knew just as well as his own phone number.

They lapsed back into silence, such an unusual exchange already natural between the two of them. It had only been a few weeks, and inwardly, Danny berated himself for keeping things hidden for so long, from Valerie, from his parents, from the people around him… It was so much easier now that everyone knew, as he finally had support to lean on from all sides, even if it was just a friend who brought him food when he moped on top of the clock tower in the middle of the night.

"You have school tomorrow," he murmured. "It's late."

"Stuff school," Valerie grumbled into his shoulder, "I'm coming with you to your rehab appointment."

Danny smiled into the darkness, wrapping his arm around her waist in a move that curled his toes anxiously. She didn't pull away at the contact, instead snuggling closer into his side. "I'd like that," he whispered.

"You'd better be able to do all the stretches this time," she said, "and walk that hundred metres."

He readjusted his positioning as she shifted, her fingers moving to press against the ridged scar through his shirt. "I'll try," he promised. "It's hurting less every day."

"Then maybe you can stop floating and actually start walking through school," she teased, drawing her hand back.

Danny chuckled. "Now why would I do that? Flying's so much easier."

She nudged her elbow into his ribs with a playful huff. Danny simply pulled her closer against his side, tilting his head to it rested on top of hers. The wind gusted past them again, threatening to topple to plastic containers still spread out in front of them, and Danny closed his eyes with a sigh.

"Thanks, Val," he mumbled.

"Anytime, Spooky," she whispered back.

He kissed the top of her head and she sighed, nestling closer and snaking her arm around his waist. Peace settled over the two of them, and as the rising moon peered over the dark horizon Danny felt like he could finally breathe again.


End file.
